Author Topic: Percentage of White Americans in NBA  (Read 21741 times)

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Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #15 on: December 16, 2009, 08:18:54 PM »

Offline Amonkey

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I totally agree with DL

Personally I thought when I played guys at the Y they underrated me because I had all my natural teeth, no tatoos, a men's haircut, and spoke English (that didn't involve a swear every third word)

nothing could have made me happier. I love it when I'm underrated.

I think white guys tend to dominate snow sports and black guys tend to dominate warm weather sports.  I think it has to do with how bodies developed to deal with their environments. Then you throw various socio-economics into it and there you go.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions....non-issue. 

Larry probably felt like a poor guy who loved the game and excelled in it and probably felt like he had way more in common with Magic than say a Mike Dunleavy Jr and I don't blame him for a nano-second.

I think cold/warm weather point, it may have to do more with geography.  Black people tend to live more in warmer climates (Africa, Brazil, Southern USA) and white people are more in colder weather.  Also, if you look at natural selection, there can be groups of people, especially isolated groups of people, who may have adapted to a specific environment that may contribute to sports.  For example, people that live in high altitude like Peruvians and Nepalese have been known to have a higher lung capacity due to the adapted increase of hemogoblin allowing oxygen to be used more efficiently compared to people in regular ground.  Also, aren't there places in Africa like Kenya where the kids would run for miles to go to school?  You get a couple of generations of the best runners from those areas and you get few kids with a pretty high aerobic capacity.  I think the area where Yao Ming came from is also known as a region with tall people.
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Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #16 on: December 16, 2009, 09:20:49 PM »

Offline PierceMVP08

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I totally agree with DL

Personally I thought when I played guys at the Y they underrated me because I had all my natural teeth, no tatoos, a men's haircut, and spoke English (that didn't involve a swear every third word)

nothing could have made me happier. I love it when I'm underrated.

I think white guys tend to dominate snow sports and black guys tend to dominate warm weather sports.  I think it has to do with how bodies developed to deal with their environments. Then you throw various socio-economics into it and there you go.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions....non-issue. 

Larry probably felt like a poor guy who loved the game and excelled in it and probably felt like he had way more in common with Magic than say a Mike Dunleavy Jr and I don't blame him for a nano-second.

I think cold/warm weather point, it may have to do more with geography.  Black people tend to live more in warmer climates (Africa, Brazil, Southern USA) and white people are more in colder weather.  Also, if you look at natural selection, there can be groups of people, especially isolated groups of people, who may have adapted to a specific environment that may contribute to sports.  For example, people that live in high altitude like Peruvians and Nepalese have been known to have a higher lung capacity due to the adapted increase of hemogoblin allowing oxygen to be used more efficiently compared to people in regular ground.  Also, aren't there places in Africa like Kenya where the kids would run for miles to go to school?  You get a couple of generations of the best runners from those areas and you get few kids with a pretty high aerobic capacity.  I think the area where Yao Ming came from is also known as a region with tall people.

Even bringing it back to the US, there is a theory that says African Americans are indeed more athletic due to the fact that they were basically breeded for excellence during times of slavery.  Obviously, slave owners wanted only the biggest, strongest and best slaves, therefore those slaves were chosen to reproduce while the weaker ones were not.  After generations of doing this, the biggest and strongest slaves remained, and they would, of course, be the ancestors of today's African Americans.  I think there is definitely some credence to this theory.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #17 on: December 16, 2009, 09:47:32 PM »

Offline jambr380

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I do agree that African Americans, in general, are more athletic and, therefore, have more potential to be great basketball players, but my question is, what are they doing in Europe? Clearly the Europeans have the ability to compete against African Americans in the United States, but our white people can't? I definitely think it stems from coaching and I think it is a little annoying.

I love the NBA as constituted now, I really do. These guys are just on another planet in terms of athletic ability and skill, but I do disagree that it is now permanently a 'black man's game'. The pendulum has a way of swinging and while the majority may remain African-American, at some point the United States is going to figure out how to coach it's white players.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #18 on: December 16, 2009, 10:12:25 PM »

Offline MetroGlobe

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I totally agree with DL

Personally I thought when I played guys at the Y they underrated me because I had all my natural teeth, no tatoos, a men's haircut, and spoke English (that didn't involve a swear every third word)

nothing could have made me happier. I love it when I'm underrated.

I think white guys tend to dominate snow sports and black guys tend to dominate warm weather sports.  I think it has to do with how bodies developed to deal with their environments. Then you throw various socio-economics into it and there you go.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions....non-issue. 

Larry probably felt like a poor guy who loved the game and excelled in it and probably felt like he had way more in common with Magic than say a Mike Dunleavy Jr and I don't blame him for a nano-second.

I think cold/warm weather point, it may have to do more with geography.  Black people tend to live more in warmer climates (Africa, Brazil, Southern USA) and white people are more in colder weather.  Also, if you look at natural selection, there can be groups of people, especially isolated groups of people, who may have adapted to a specific environment that may contribute to sports.  For example, people that live in high altitude like Peruvians and Nepalese have been known to have a higher lung capacity due to the adapted increase of hemogoblin allowing oxygen to be used more efficiently compared to people in regular ground.  Also, aren't there places in Africa like Kenya where the kids would run for miles to go to school?  You get a couple of generations of the best runners from those areas and you get few kids with a pretty high aerobic capacity.  I think the area where Yao Ming came from is also known as a region with tall people.

Even bringing it back to the US, there is a theory that says African Americans are indeed more athletic due to the fact that they were basically breeded for excellence during times of slavery.  Obviously, slave owners wanted only the biggest, strongest and best slaves, therefore those slaves were chosen to reproduce while the weaker ones were not.  After generations of doing this, the biggest and strongest slaves remained, and they would, of course, be the ancestors of today's African Americans.  I think there is definitely some credence to this theory.

This is exactly where we have to tread very carefully, but there's more than a little credence to what you're saying.  After this many generations, some of the genes have recessed.  This is why enormously giant children seem to be randomly born to average sized parents.  But make no mistake, this is a part of why African Americans have such tremendous athletic gifts.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2009, 10:23:12 PM »

Offline Eja117

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I totally agree with DL

Personally I thought when I played guys at the Y they underrated me because I had all my natural teeth, no tatoos, a men's haircut, and spoke English (that didn't involve a swear every third word)

nothing could have made me happier. I love it when I'm underrated.

I think white guys tend to dominate snow sports and black guys tend to dominate warm weather sports.  I think it has to do with how bodies developed to deal with their environments. Then you throw various socio-economics into it and there you go.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions....non-issue. 

Larry probably felt like a poor guy who loved the game and excelled in it and probably felt like he had way more in common with Magic than say a Mike Dunleavy Jr and I don't blame him for a nano-second.

I think cold/warm weather point, it may have to do more with geography.  Black people tend to live more in warmer climates (Africa, Brazil, Southern USA) and white people are more in colder weather.  Also, if you look at natural selection, there can be groups of people, especially isolated groups of people, who may have adapted to a specific environment that may contribute to sports.  For example, people that live in high altitude like Peruvians and Nepalese have been known to have a higher lung capacity due to the adapted increase of hemogoblin allowing oxygen to be used more efficiently compared to people in regular ground.  Also, aren't there places in Africa like Kenya where the kids would run for miles to go to school?  You get a couple of generations of the best runners from those areas and you get few kids with a pretty high aerobic capacity.  I think the area where Yao Ming came from is also known as a region with tall people.

Even bringing it back to the US, there is a theory that says African Americans are indeed more athletic due to the fact that they were basically breeded for excellence during times of slavery.  Obviously, slave owners wanted only the biggest, strongest and best slaves, therefore those slaves were chosen to reproduce while the weaker ones were not.  After generations of doing this, the biggest and strongest slaves remained, and they would, of course, be the ancestors of today's African Americans.  I think there is definitely some credence to this theory.
Do you have any links to back up this theory? It just strikes me an urban legendish.  So someone's great great grandfather was bred. So what?  Look at MJ's kids...not as good.

There are tons of pro athletes whose kids went pro and sometimes you even hear about legacy families in college sports going back to grandparents, but you don't usually hear about 4th and 5th generation people going pro.

If you take a dog and breed it with a champ, but then do nothing, 5 generations later you don't have a champ.

I'm just not seeing this.

It just strikes me like....Swedes play great football because they valued strength in their society when they were Vikings and the less strong Vikings got killed and didn't pass on their genes so Northern Euros do better in baseball cause the same skills for swinging a sword transfer to a bat.

Or ancient Greeks in Sparta left weak babies exposed so the only Spartans were the strongest, so years later you see lots of successful Greeks in such and such....

I'm not so sure that breeding for doing physical labor such as cotton picking and plowing and rice farming is the same as playing the fast sport of basketball. Not to mention in sports like football, yes you have big strong black linemen, but you have big strong white linemen too, and linebackers, and fullbacks.  So what's up with the white guys if they weren't bred? 

I'm just saying I want the link before I go for this one.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #20 on: December 16, 2009, 11:12:56 PM »

Offline scoop

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You can google "The Slavery Hypothesis". It's a discredited theory these days. Genetics and evolutionary biology explain why blacks are more athletic, but that's not exclusive to African-Americans: blacks are a small minority of the French population and yet how many French white players do you know?

# Alexis Ajinça
# Nicolas Batum
# Boris Diaw
# Yakhouba Diawara
# Mickaël Gelabale
# Ian Mahinmi
# Tony Parker (born in Belgium)
# Johan Petro
# Mickaël Piétrus
# Ronny Turiaf
# Tariq Abdul-Wahad
# Cozell McQueen
# Jérôme Moïso
# Antoine Rigaudeau

Only one Caucasian (Rigaudeau).

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #21 on: December 16, 2009, 11:45:30 PM »

Offline BudweiserCeltic

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I totally agree with DL

Personally I thought when I played guys at the Y they underrated me because I had all my natural teeth, no tatoos, a men's haircut, and spoke English (that didn't involve a swear every third word)

nothing could have made me happier. I love it when I'm underrated.

I think white guys tend to dominate snow sports and black guys tend to dominate warm weather sports.  I think it has to do with how bodies developed to deal with their environments. Then you throw various socio-economics into it and there you go.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions....non-issue. 

Larry probably felt like a poor guy who loved the game and excelled in it and probably felt like he had way more in common with Magic than say a Mike Dunleavy Jr and I don't blame him for a nano-second.

I think cold/warm weather point, it may have to do more with geography.  Black people tend to live more in warmer climates (Africa, Brazil, Southern USA) and white people are more in colder weather.  Also, if you look at natural selection, there can be groups of people, especially isolated groups of people, who may have adapted to a specific environment that may contribute to sports.  For example, people that live in high altitude like Peruvians and Nepalese have been known to have a higher lung capacity due to the adapted increase of hemogoblin allowing oxygen to be used more efficiently compared to people in regular ground.  Also, aren't there places in Africa like Kenya where the kids would run for miles to go to school?  You get a couple of generations of the best runners from those areas and you get few kids with a pretty high aerobic capacity.  I think the area where Yao Ming came from is also known as a region with tall people.

Even bringing it back to the US, there is a theory that says African Americans are indeed more athletic due to the fact that they were basically breeded for excellence during times of slavery.  Obviously, slave owners wanted only the biggest, strongest and best slaves, therefore those slaves were chosen to reproduce while the weaker ones were not.  After generations of doing this, the biggest and strongest slaves remained, and they would, of course, be the ancestors of today's African Americans.  I think there is definitely some credence to this theory.

Not really, particularly considering why Africans made good slaves in the first place was because as a group they were intrinsically a physically strong race overall.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #22 on: December 17, 2009, 12:23:28 AM »

Offline GreenFaith1819

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I just don't know about the theory of slavery, in reference to the athleticism of African Americans in the NBA right now. Reason I say this is because I can name three players right now that dominated the NBA back in the 80's: Larry Bird, Kevin Mchale, and Bill Walton. Yes I named Bill, because when he was healthy he was dominant in Portland and led them to a title if I'm not mistaken. And he was dominant in helping us to a title in 86.

I just named those three off the bat, but if I did a little more research I could probably name quite a few more from the 80's and 90's.

Kevin Love shows a lot of promise as well if he can stay healthy. I see him being All-Star good in a few years.

Good discussion, though.


Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #23 on: December 17, 2009, 12:25:24 AM »

Offline Spoon

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By the way, don't look now but Milwaukee looks to be the most diversified team in the league.  They almost have a starting rotation of international players.

PG- Brandon Jennings (played in Italy)
SF- Carlos Delfino (Argentina)
PF- Ersan Ilyasova (Turkey)
C- Andrew Bogut (Australia)

Not to mention...
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (Cameroon)
Franciso Elson (Netherlands)
Dan Gadzuric (Netherlands)
Roko Ukic (Yugoslavia)
Joe Alexander (Taiwan)

...wow, come to think about it, almost the entire team are foreigners.  The Americans are actually the minority.  Considering that 8 out 15 players were born outside USA.
There is a little bit of stretching here. Brandon Jennings played one year in Italy. His very American PG game suffered there and is thriving in the NBA. He is clearly not an international player. Joe Alexander is an American. His father worked abroad. He lived in a community with other Americans in China and spent a lot of time in Maryland.

Francisco Elson (California), Andrew Bogut (Utah), Dan Gadzuric (UCLA), and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (UCLA) were all American college players brought up on the U.S. game. The only true international players on the Bucks are Ukic, Delfino, and Ilyasova.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #24 on: December 17, 2009, 12:33:13 AM »

Offline PierceMVP08

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I never stated the slavery theory was fact.  I just stated it as a theory. I haven't researched it, don't know all the details, but I was simply offering it as a possibility.  Personally, I think there is something to it, but that is just opinion.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #25 on: December 17, 2009, 12:37:22 AM »

Offline GreenFaith1819

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I never stated the slavery theory was fact.  I just stated it as a theory. I haven't researched it, don't know all the details, but I was simply offering it as a possibility.  Personally, I think there is something to it, but that is just opinion.

No worries. I was just offering my opinion on the issue in general.

Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #26 on: December 17, 2009, 12:45:00 AM »

Offline Amonkey

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I never stated the slavery theory was fact.  I just stated it as a theory. I haven't researched it, don't know all the details, but I was simply offering it as a possibility.  Personally, I think there is something to it, but that is just opinion.

No worries. I was just offering my opinion on the issue in general.

I think there is some legitimacy, but I think it goes beyond slavery.  I think in order to have full print of these genetic changes, there must be a long line of hereditary information being passed over and over again to make a significant change in the overall population.  I think the physical attribute would have to have started in Africa.  That is why I think that some of these theories can be true in small pockets of isolated regions.  Like I mentioned before, they have discovered Peruvians and Nepalese with a higher lung capacity due to high altitudes.  However, I think it took them a long time to develop these changes.
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Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #27 on: December 17, 2009, 12:49:48 AM »

Offline Bahku

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Why does this matter at all? The only way we're ever going to get past this white/black crap is to stop shedding light on it and making it an issue. I'm truly offended whenever I am asked to fill out an online questionnaire or form that asks for race. I know there are reasons of "traget-marketing" that people want to know about, but we have to stop placing these labels on people and making discussions out of issues that should not matter.

I don't care what percentage of whites or blacks or purples there are in the NBA ... the players got there because they are great basketball players, and the color of their skin should have nothing to do with anything. Sorry, I know people think we'll work these things out by talking about them, but when it comes to bigotry and racism, the only way they will ever become a non-issue, is if we stop talking about them ... period.

Every time we make race a point of discussion, we are magnifying the problem and pointing a spotlight on our differences ... it doesn't matter what our skin color is, what matters is the content of our hearts, and that we are all human beings. Whenever I see a topic with the words "white" or "black" in it, I cringe, because it means one more opportunity to point out our differences.

Please, can we stop caring about color once-and-for-all? IT DOES NOT MATTER!
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Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #28 on: December 17, 2009, 12:51:36 AM »

Offline Amonkey

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By the way, don't look now but Milwaukee looks to be the most diversified team in the league.  They almost have a starting rotation of international players.

PG- Brandon Jennings (played in Italy)
SF- Carlos Delfino (Argentina)
PF- Ersan Ilyasova (Turkey)
C- Andrew Bogut (Australia)

Not to mention...
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (Cameroon)
Franciso Elson (Netherlands)
Dan Gadzuric (Netherlands)
Roko Ukic (Yugoslavia)
Joe Alexander (Taiwan)

...wow, come to think about it, almost the entire team are foreigners.  The Americans are actually the minority.  Considering that 8 out 15 players were born outside USA.
There is a little bit of stretching here. Brandon Jennings played one year in Italy. His very American PG game suffered there and is thriving in the NBA. He is clearly not an international player. Joe Alexander is an American. His father worked abroad. He lived in a community with other Americans in China and spent a lot of time in Maryland.

Francisco Elson (California), Andrew Bogut (Utah), Dan Gadzuric (UCLA), and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (UCLA) were all American college players brought up on the U.S. game. The only true international players on the Bucks are Ukic, Delfino, and Ilyasova.

First of all, I didn't add Jennings as one of the international players.  I just referenced him as one player that has played overseas.  I don't see how when a player plays college ball makes him any less international.  My point wasn't that they play international ball.  My point was that this Milwaukee must be the most diverse team ever.  They have 8 different countries being represented here.

I do agree with Joe Alexander.  I didn't know that he was "Taiwanese" either but when I was doing my quick research I saw that and figured I'd put it in.  Although I would have to argue that Bogut, and in some ways, Gadzuric, are more known to international ball then you credit them.  I know Bogut has played a lot of international ball for Australia.
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Re: Percentage of White Americans in NBA
« Reply #29 on: December 17, 2009, 12:58:55 AM »

Offline Amonkey

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Why does this matter at all? The only way we're ever going to get past this white/black crap is to stop shedding light on it and making it an issue. I'm truly offended whenever I am asked to fill out an online questionnaire or form that asks for race. I know there are reasons of "traget-marketing" that people want to know about, but we have to stop placing these labels on people and making discussions out of issues that should not matter.

I don't care what percentage of whites or blacks or purples there are in the NBA ... the players got there because they are great basketball players, and the color of their skin should have nothing to do with anything. Sorry, I know people think we'll work these things out by talking about them, but when it comes to bigotry and racism, the only way they will ever become a non-issue, is if we stop talking about them ... period.

Every time we make race a point of discussion, we are magnifying the problem and pointing a spotlight on our differences ... it doesn't matter what our skin color is, what matters is the content of our hearts, and that we are all human beings. Whenever I see a topic with the words "white" or "black" in it, I cringe, because it means one more opportunity to point out our differences.

Please, can we stop caring about color once-and-for-all? IT DOES NOT MATTER!

While I agree with you that it doesn't matter, I don't think healthy conversations like this are harmful.  You say that we shouldn't talk about it, but ignorance of race is not the solution either.  I come from Brazil and one thing that I have noticed, and many Brazilians once we leave Brazil notice, is that while we are living in Brazil, we really don't see racism.  In Brazil, we don't have no hyphens.  There are no African-Brazilian, or Italian-Brazilian or Japanese-Brazilian.  We are all Brazilian.  We really don't get to see discussions about racism like we have over here.  However, once you leave Brazil that is when you notice all the racism that is going there.  You see that the kids that are getting shot are black.  That the poverty line affects mostly black people, that we only see white people on TV.  However, when you live in a "colorblind" society these things don't matter and it doesn't bother you.  I think it's better to be aware of the world then living in a world of ignorance.
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